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Wednesday, April 1, 2015

For March's Stashbusting challenge, I decided to take the opportunity to do fixes to my husband's late 18th century men's jacket using stash fabric and trim. It's a dark blue crushed velvet (cotton or blend), which was thrown together in a rush last February, and needed some attention before the 4th Annual Francaise Dinner at the end of March.

First I cut down the bottom of the jacket (it was too bulky, didn't lay right). Then I added linen pockets out of some leftover tan linen scraps I had lying around. Then I added blue linen sleeve linings and re-did the sleeve cuffs (I had swapped them previously in re-setting the sleeves). And then I added a bunch of gold trim in a design similar to coats of the era, in order to finish the look and the stashbusting for March! All my fixes are done now, but I still plan to add more trim & 'for show only' buttons in the future!

Pattern: Drafted from scratch by tracing out a late 18th century jacket that a living history re-enactor friend of ours from RCHS loaned my husband for the 2nd Annual Francaise Dinner two years ago. I traced out pattern piece shapes on the actual finished jacket that we had borrowed, and re-made that in a muslin, before making the jacket in 2013.

Year: Late 18th Century

Notions: Trim. A nice gold trim that burns clean (cotton?) from Jomar that was in my stash for 9 months to a year, maybe more, can't recall precisely.

How historically accurate is it? Eh, so-so I guess. The jacket shape and drafted pattern are very accurate, but the fabric is only so-so, and I machined a lot of this jacket. The blue linen lining is decent, and the gold trim is similar to what you might have seen on a jacket at the time. It passes muster more on the three foot rule, then studiously close looks.

Hours to complete: Lots. I kept making silly errors because I was trying to sew tired. I had to set the sleeve cuffs twice. I had to re-do one of the sleeve linings as it didn't lay well. I hand sewed on all the gold trim.

First worn: My husband wore the re-make of his jacket for the first time at the 4th Annual Francaise Dinner on March 28, 2015!Total cost: everything was from the stash, the linen scraps I used to add the pockets, the linen sleeve linings that I added, the gold trim from Jomar, so everything bought long ago and leftover bits and pieces. The Jomar trim was one of those 1/2 off .19 cents a yard, and I used a decent amount of yards.